What didn’t happen can be more powerful than what did.
Of all the things that we see in our past, the things that stand out are often the great or terrible things.
Maybe it was the car for your graduation present, or the way you were left heartbroken after a breakup. We always remember the things that did happen.
But we rarely remember the things that didn’t.
Sometimes the absence of something is obvious; other times it is a silent, invisible void that lingers deep inside, hiding in plain sight from our awareness.
When a plant grows, it requires a few things. Good soil in which to plant roots, water to strengthen and sunlight to nourish. In the absence of anything destructive, a plant will grow to reach its full potential with very little needed from the outside world.
If only the human soul were so easy to flourish. Truly, the soul will grow in the absence of the things it requires, but it will likely grow imperfectly, with many deficiencies that are hard to see in ourselves.
Those who have sustained great abuse can point to the events in their lives and explain their heartache, their deficits and their failings, with a certain ease.
Those who grew in the absence of necessary emotional components are scarred not by something they can point to, but by the lack of something they probably didn’t even know was supposed to be there.
A child who grows up without being taught how to face their fears will forever run, and not know why. The child who grows without a family that they can trust will often spend their life emotionally withdrawn from those around them, feeling apart, alone and abandoned.
In my work as a healer, I find many people who are hurting because of the absence of something in their life, but they are unaware of how this absence has hurt them. Instead they flounder, seeking answers for their pain in the events that occurred, and never stopping to consider that which was denied them.
The vacuum that makes no sound, and cannot be seen, can still wound and kill.
I invite you today to look into your soul, at those things which might disturb your peace, and consider whether this may be from the lack of something that was supposed to be there, but never quite appeared in your life.
When we understand the effects of a void in our life, we are one step closer to finding peace in ourselves.
-- Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings